Transparency International has released its Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2018. It shows that Pakistan has improved slightly on the index by one point.
The country has got a score of 33 out of 100 for 2018, which is one point better than 2017. However, its ranking remained the same, i.e., 117 out of 180 countries.
Chairman of Transparency International Pakistan, Sohail Muzaffar, has said that Pakistan needs to take serious actions to control ‘rampant corruption’ in the country. He opined that the economic condition of the country cannot improve until corruption is dealt with.
“Foreign businesses check the ease of doing business before taking the decision to start working with a country. Pakistan will need to improve its ranking in the various International surveys to attract foreign investments which is necessary for it to improve its GDP growth rate,” said Muzaffar.
CPI
According to the CPI, countries that have performed better as compared to the previous years include Estonia, Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal, and Guyana.
Whereas, countries that declined on the index are Australia, Chile, Malta, Turkey, and Mexico. Notably, two-thirds of countries have scored below 50 this year, with the average score being 43.
The top countries on the CPI include Denmark and New Zealand having scores of 88 and 87. The countries at the bottom of the index include Somalia, Syria, and South Sudan with scores of 10, 13, and 13, respectively.
The CPI index ranks 180 countries according to their perceived levels of public sector corruption among the experts and businesspeople. It takes into account a scale of zero to 100, with zero marking highly corrupt and 100 marking clean.
The index also found a link between corruption and the health of democracies. It found that the countries having higher rates of corruption have diminishing political rights and weak democratic institutions.
